A Disappointing Continuation

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The Crush (1993) ** (out of 4) Nick Eliot (Cary Elwes) is a journalist who rents out a guest house and soon becomes friends with the owner's fourteen-year-old daughter Darian (Alicia Silverstone). It doesn't take long for Nick to realize that the young's girls ideas of a friendship are a lot more than what he is willing to give and soon her crush turns into something more dangerous.After the success of FATAL ATTRACTION we were getting all sorts of psycho thrillers. Films like SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE were finding audiences so obviously another step was to make on dealing with a LOLITA type of character. THE CRUSH isn't a very original movie and for a thriller it contains no thrills so on that level it's really not that successful, which is too bad because there are a few good things sprinkled throughout the picture.The main reason to watch the movie are for the performances. The actors at least keep you glued into what's going on even though everything is pretty predictable unless you've never seen this type of film before. Elwes is very believable in his role as the writer who finds himself getting too much attention. You've got Silverstone in his screen debut doing a nice job as the troubled woman but there's no question that the screenplay really didn't give her too much to work with. She pulls off the sexy Lolita just fine but the mental issues of the character are never really explored. Jennifer Rubin is good as Elwes' love interest and Kurtwood Smith gets some good scenes as the girl's father.The biggest issue with this movie is that we've seen it countless times before and there's not a single original idea on display here. Even the sexual undertones are kept pretty minimum and instead we're basically seeing a watered down version of LOLITA. The fact that there's not any suspense and hell, there's not even a body count shows that this movie would have been better off on Lifetime instead of in theaters.

This sexy thriller is very much entertaining for the *wrong* reasons. It's absurd, trashy, and utterly laughable. It does have a memorable antagonist in the form of young Alicia Silverstone, who plays Adrian Forrester, a Lolita-ish 14-year-old who develops a serious crush on Nick Eliot (Cary Elwes), the 20-something journalist renting a guest house from her parents (Kurtwood Smith, Gwynyth Walsh). Of course, nobody believes the older man when he protests that the crazed girl is the wrongdoer, and Nick finds his life continuously going awry as she creates one problem after another.Written and directed by Alan Shapiro, this film doesn't exactly have the brightest characters. As a result, you never really root for Nick. Fortunately Silverstone, who'd previously made her name in Aerosmith rock videos, is a total hoot as this deranged gal who does some pretty nasty things to make her crush look bad. And things do indeed look very bad for Nick when she frames him for sexual assault. Elwes does what he can with his obtuse role, while Smith has some choice moments as the dad. Jennifer Rubin looks quite lovely as the photographer whom we know is more appropriate for Nick. And Amber Benson lends some solid support as Adrians' "friend" who tries to warn Nick about what she knows.The movie *is* well paced and climaxes in one of the more priceless confrontation scenes that you're likely to see in this sort of thing. The ending is actually rather effective in its payoff of the Adrian character.Silverstone may well have had a body double for the nude scenes, but it's still quite uncomfortable when remembering that the character being watched is a mere 14 years old.All in all, "The Crush" is entertaining if exploitative trash, and should never ever be taken too seriously.Seven out of 10.

***SPOILERS*** Magazine writer Nick Eliot, Cary Elwer, should have know better in what he was up against as soon as he almost ran down with his car the hot to trot, for older men, Adrian Forrester, Alicia Silverstone, as he was searching for an affordable apartment in the big city: Vancouver BC.It's when Adrian saw the shy and quite as well as cute Nick she started to get ideas about getting him into the shack together with her. Nick didn't help himself from getting Adrian out of his hair and him into her fantasy world by renting an apartment from her parents Cliff & Liv Forrester, Kurtwood Smith & Gwynwth Walsh, that he thought would give him all the peace & quite that he needed to do his work. What in fact Nick got was a hell on earth with the oversexed Adrian turning his life upside down as well as anyone else she thought was getting in the way of her attempted planned and calculated seduction of Nick! Which included his co-worker at the trendy Pique Magazine that he worked for photographer Amy Maddik, Jennifer Rubin.You just couldn't help feeling for the poor guy in how far Adrian would go to get him sexually involved with her. Knowing that it's not right as well as sinful for him to have anything to do with the very sexually aggressive Adrian, Nick was 28 and she 14, he still gave into her advances by taking Adrian out late at night to a local lovers lane and planting a harmless kiss on her cheek. This started her engine going in Adrian going all he way to get Nick to become her secret lover or if not destroy is life which in fact, up until the last few minutes of the movie, she did!It was in fact Adrian's girlfriend Cheyenne, Amber Benson, who tried to warn Nick to stay away from her in what she did the year before to a camp counselor whom she forced, by exposing herself to him, to get involved with her at summer camp. This not only cost the guy his job but reputation, in him being left alone with young girls, by being declared a sexual predator by the court! Now Adrian is working on Nick to get him to either go to bed with her or make it, which she later did, as if he forced himself on her and viciously raped her!***SPOILERS*** There was a bittersweet ending to this whole sleazy affair, on Adrian's part, with her being exposed for what she was only after she almost ended up killing the entire cast, including her dad, in the movie. A by now an all that he can take Nick finally put an end to Adrian's reign of terror, on older men, by taking her out not on a date but with a solid straight left to the jaw before she could do any more damage!In the end Adrian is put into a mental institution for the juvenile criminally insane where instead of her getting cured from her fixation on getting it on, sexually, with older men was only intensified by her secretly planning to get it on with her court appointed kind and understanding psychiatrist Dr. Pollard, Andrew Airlie!

What could be more attractive than a movie about a super sexy blonde babe who was the sex fantasy of thousands blackmailing a mature man? Well "The Crush" is not all about an obsessive teenager; it deals with the problems of a sexy teenager and how family is always necessary in order to define a teens' personality.But the lesson in this movie is that obsessions can be deadly, dangerous, and even sexy.Alicia Silverstone carries the movie entirely on her back showing sexy lingerie, bikinis, skimpy mini skirts, and even dirty dialog.She's the main attractive of the movie and face it, without her, the movie would suck even more.Overall this is a decent early 90's Thriller.